Wednesday, July 1, 2015

Punish the Character, Punish the Story, Punish the Audience

Barbara Kruger- Your Body is a Battleground

"Half the time, people can’t even seem to figure out how to define rape, let alone portray it in responsible ways. Indeed, one of the most baffling things about so many rape scenes in popular culture is that the people who scripted them felt qualified to do so, despite seemingly knowing nothing about rape except that it exists and it is bad. In short, anyone canwrite a rape scene—but should they? Chances are, the answer is no."- Laura Hudson, Rape Scenes Aren't Just Awful, They're Lazy Writing

Wholeheartedly seconded this whole piece. You'd think that with the amount of women out there experiencing this, one of their shitty boyfriend screenwriters (or god forbid, a woman screenwriter herself) might get it right, but there's almost always some lazy shortcut in TV/Hollywood rape scenes. The more offensive thing is, of course, the way it trivializes a serious issue, but goddamn if as a writer you aren't allowed to take some level of offense as well